Yahoo! Mail Blog
The latest scoop on Yahoo! Mail product updates, new releases, bug fixes,

At Yahoo!, our goal is to help you stay in touch with the people who matter most in your life. Whether it’s on a PC, a smartphone, an iPad, or a TV, we want to bring you a Yahoo! communications experience that you can enjoy on any Internet-connected device. Today, I’m thrilled to share with you two announcements that bring this vision even closer.

The Best Yahoo! Communications Experience — for your Android Phone
First, we’re excited to unveil Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger apps for the Android operating system. These are the first Android applications that Yahoo! has ever released and we couldn’t be happier to be sharing them with you today. You can download them from the Android Market for phones that support Android OS 2.0+, such the popular Motorola Droid, the HTC Incredible and the Google Nexus One.

Yahoo! Mail and Messenger are available as separate streamlined apps, however they offer common features that will give you a better mobile communications experience that’s easy to use and immediately familiar. Both apps let you compose messages with rich text, express yourself through our many Yahoo! emoticons, access Yahoo! Address Book and phone contacts, as well as share photos that you’ve taken on your phone.

The Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger Android apps offer many of the core features that you find in their PC counterparts. In the Yahoo! Mail Android app, you can search for important messages with our Full Search and Smart Folders features and organize messages into the same personal folders you use on the PC. In Messenger you can set your Yahoo! Messenger status message, view the status messages of your buddy list contacts and chat with your MSN/Windows Live Messenger friends. For more details on the Messenger app, click here.

Give them a try today! You can download the Yahoo! Mail and Messenger apps from the Android Market.

For additional information, visit http://mobile.yahoo.com/mail/android.

The new HTML5 mobile Web Mail for iPhone and iPod Touch – A smarter, faster, and richer mobile mail experience
For our second announcement, we are upgrading our mobile Web mail experience with a faster, more feature-rich version. We wanted to give our nearly 300 million Yahoo! Mail users more options to access our service on the devices they love. The newest version of Yahoo! Mail, available today as an opt-in trial, has many of the features that you’ll find on our PC version and leverages the power of HTML5 to deliver an app-like experience never before seen on the mobile Web. It’s a mobile email experience that is:

• Faster and more reliable: If you’re offline, Yahoo! Mail uses local caching capabilities to help you access and search your messages even without an internet connection.
• Smart: You can find and organize your messages using Full Search, personal folders and Smart Folders with messages from your most important contacts and optimized views for photos and file attachments.
• Rich: View rich photo and video attachments in their full form, or as previews directly in the inbox view.
• Seamless & unified experience: Going forward, you’ll see a consistent look and feel, whether you’re on a smartphone or a PC.

During the trial period, our new mobile Web mail experience will be available in 28 languages across more than 200 countries. We’ve optimized it for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch running iOS 3.0+, with more mobile devices and platforms on the way.

The new HTML5 version of Yahoo! Mail is available as an opt-in beta, though we expect to upgrade everyone to this experience shortly. Get started by visiting http://y.ahoo.it/mailbeta on your phone’s browser, or by visiting http://m.yahoo.com/mail and tapping on ‘Preview the new Yahoo! Mail’.

We’re really excited about both our HTML5 Yahoo! Mail experience, and the awesome new Android applications, so give them a whirl and don’t forget to come back and let us know what you think!

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The bracket is set. Sixteen teams are through to the elimination round, 16 teams are flying home. If you think the World Cup has been an emotional roller coaster, buckle your seat belts because over the next two weeks the battle for world soccer supremacy is guaranteed to bring more cheers and tears around the globe. Only one team will remain standing on July 11. Will it be yours?

Speaking from the perspective of a soccer fanatic, I’ve become increasingly reliant on Yahoo! Mail to express the joy and pain of watching my team fight through the World Cup. And through these first couple of weeks, I have discovered ways that Yahoo! Mail can help me deal with the emotional roller coaster of the World Cup. Here are 5 tips for how you can use Yahoo! Mail to help you through the elimination round:

1. Tell the world how you feel through your status message
Yahoo! Mail lets you post status updates that will appear on in places like Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Pulse. You also have the option to expand your reach by sending updates to your Facebook page through Yahoo! Mail. This is a good way to plan an event or poll your friends about the referee’s sanity. More importantly, it’s a way to find an audience as you scream in joy or despair.

2. Wear your colors
Got a Yahoo! Avatar? Dress up your virtual alter-ego with your team’s colors. Through our Yahoo! Avatars page you can choose from a collection of jerseys from teams that qualified for the next round, including England, Brazil, Argentina, USA, Netherlands, Germany, Portugal and France. Oh, wait… scratch France. Or you can hoist the trophy with the FIFA avatar.

3. Search for photos in the Flickr application
Yahoo! Mail gives you the breadth and depth of Flickr through an application that you can launch in your email experience. Flickr is a great tool for World Cup viewing because it gives me a way to soak in the spirit of the game from a fan’s perspective. With so many camera phones on hand inside and outside the stadium, there’s bound to be some photos of the game making their way into Flickr. If you find something you like, you can automatically embed it into your email message and send it around to your friends. Note– this feature is only available on the new Yahoo! Mail.

4. Keep up with news from the Today module
The What’s New page is the place for news and status updates in your Yahoo! Mail session. Check back for updates and post-game articles to dig deeper into the details of the game.

5. Send some personalized smack talk to a friend
My friend George is from Ghana, so I have already saved a draft email of some juicy smack talk once USA scores on Saturday. It reads, “Dear George, GOAAAAAAAAL!!!!!” Since I’ll be at a bar or a friend’s place during the game, I’ll be able to access my draft folder by logging in from my Motorola Droid or from a friend’s iPhone. Man, I hope I didn’t just jinx my team.

Enjoy the next two weeks. There will be plenty of surprises leading up to the final game on July 11. Hopefully this year there won’t be any head-butting.

Jim Hu
Product Marketing Manager
Yahoo! Mail

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The start of the world’s biggest sporting event – the FIFA World Cup — is just around the corner and the world is buzzing, rivalries are renewing, and even the smack talk has begun. Starting today on Yahoo! Mail, you can easily share your passion for your team. Go on, let your Yahoo! and Facebook friends know who you are rooting for!

Here’s how it works. Starting today, you will see a flag icon in the status area – the flag is based on the regional version and language of Yahoo! Mail that you use.

By clicking on the flag, Yahoo! Mail will auto-fill your status message with a short phrase of support for that country.

Like any status message, you can customize it to your liking – most importantly, you can change the country you are rooting for by clicking on the drop-down arrow next to the flag. Once you do so, you can see the full list of countries that are participating. Click on the country you support and a suggested status message will populate just like before.

Once you click Share, your message will be broadcast to people who view your Updates on Yahoo!. What’s even better is that you can also share your passion to your Facebook friends by clicking “Add Facebook” and linking your account (and there are many, many, many other benefits of linking your accounts). Sharing on Yahoo! and Facebook definitely gets the conversation going, even if everyone doesn’t always agree…

Share your passion for your team and don’t forget to check out the sweet smorgasbord of World Cup activities across Yahoo!, sure to satisfy even the most ardent of fans.

Who are you rooting for in South Africa?

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Like many of you, I am an active Facebook user and have been using many of the Facebook-related features we’ve added to Yahoo! Mail since we announced our plans to integrate Facebook more deeply across all of Yahoo! last December.

Specifically, in Yahoo! Mail we’ve enabled you to import Facebook friends email addresses into Yahoo!, made it simple to post your Facebook status from Yahoo! Mail, and more. Today I’m thrilled to announce another new integration launching to all users* that enables you to view, comment, and like your Facebook news feed items – all right from Yahoo! Mail.

Facebook activity from your friends will now appear in your Updates section, alongside your friends’ activity on Yahoo!, Twitter, Flickr and so on. Now you can get all your Updates in one place, right when you log in to Yahoo! Mail.

Just like on Facebook, you can Comment or Like a news feed item right from Yahoo! Mail…

…and of course, the comment goes back to Facebook so others can see it right away.

We also know that you have different friends on Yahoo! and Facebook, and seeing all their Updates in one place may not be ideal. No problem. By default, we show both Yahoo! and Facebook items intermingled, but you can filter – All Updates, only Yahoo!, only Facebook – by clicking on that tab. Not only that, regardless of what tab you are on, anytime you get a new update on Yahoo! or Facebook, you get notified via a “Show new Updates” link without having to refresh your browser.

So there you have it – one-stop updates from across Yahoo! and Facebook, right on Yahoo! Mail, with more to come across the broader Yahoo! network soon. We hope this feature helps you easily stay in touch with the people who matter most to you. Please let us know what you think!

* = (To activate all Facebook features, you first must link your Facebook account if you have not done so already. It’s super simple! Here’s how).

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We’ve recently been hard at work helping you stay in touch with the people who matter the most to you, from posting your Facebook status from Mail to making sure you always have your friends’ updated contact information. Today I wanted to introduce another easy way to keep up with the people on Yahoo! Mail… and keep the conversation going!

Specifically, you can now comment or ‘Like’ Updates that you see on the What’s New page in Yahoo! Mail. Say, for example, that your friend rates a movie on Yahoo! Movies. Now by clicking on ‘Like’, you can show your approval.

A different friend may see that you Like it and want more information. By clicking Comment, a text box opens up where he can share his thoughts or questions on the Update.

As with any conversation, you can follow it from afar or jump in!

And as with all Updates at Yahoo! Mail, you fully control what you share. Let’s say you have a second thought on something you posted. Simply click ‘Remove’ in the ‘Like’ bubble or click the ‘X’ in the comment bubble to remove anything you don’t want others to see.

These features are now live for All New Yahoo! Mail users worldwide and will be coming to Classic Mail users next week. Please let us know what you think – and happy commenting!

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At Yahoo! Mail, we’re big supporters of open source software. To help fuel the next batch of innovative Internet inventions, we’ve just expanded and refreshed the programming tools we offer developers to build enhancements for your mailbox.

With the new interface (described in all its technical glory over on our Developer Network), trusted companies can now build features that help you do more with the messages in your Yahoo! Mail account, and do so in a way that keeps you in control.

Here’s how it works:
Say a company builds a tool that sends users a text message alert whenever their boss e-mails them. With the new tools we’re announcing, Yahoo! Mail users who are interested in this service can securely grant access to that company without sharing their password (which would be a definite no-no); because they don’t have to share their password, they can also easily revoke access if they change their mind. We’ve even added the ability to limit whether the company can view whole messages or just selected bits like the Subject line.

With these enhancements, it’s easier than ever for companies to build new features, and we’re all excited to see what new inventions they’ll build with this service. Developers, start your engines!

– MarkR

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Have you ever lost track of a friend because she moved and forgot to let you know her new address and phone number? When you’ve changed your contact information, did you remember to let all of your friends and colleagues know?

Wouldn’t it be great if you had an address book that updated itself — that always had the most up-to-date information for the people who matter most to you?

In the latest version of Yahoo! Contacts – in addition to making it simple to import email addresses from your Facebook friends – we have rolled out an “auto-updating” Address Book! Let’s take that friend who moved away and didn’t share her new phone number. In the old days, you might have lost touch with her. But now, when your friend updates her Yahoo! contact details and chooses to share the information, your Yahoo! Contacts gets automatically updated. Here’s how it works:

Let’s turn my example around, and make sure your friends always have the most up-to-date information for you! Just go to Yahoo! Contacts and click on the Share my info link under the Popular Tools.

Clicking on the link will show all the contact information that Yahoo! has for you.

If everything looks good, just click Start Sharing and this information will be shared with all the people you’ve chosen to share it with (such as your Connections). If you are like me, much of the information shown will likely come from when you registered for Yahoo! In other words – it’s ancient! To update your information just click Edit to go to your account information page. From there you can easily update your contact details and choose who you want to share it with. Remember, you have complete control over what you share.

Now here’s the fun part: your friends get your latest contact information without having to lift a finger! First, they will get a Yahoo! Update notifying them that your contact information has changed. Next, when they go to look you up in Yahoo! Contacts, they will see the contact information you gave them access to and the last time it was updated (don’t worry, none of the information you have for them will ever be over-written). Here’s what you’re friends will see:

Hopefully this feature helps you never lose touch with the people who matter most.

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As you know, we are always listening to your feedback. Many of you that have small computer screens have told us that you would like more space to read your emails. You spoke and we listened.

To give you more real estate to read your emails, we are adding a button just to the left of the advertisement in the All-New Yahoo! Mail. Clicking that button will hide the ad temporarily, while you read your email.

This is a handy tool, especially if you are using a computer with a smaller screen resolution like a small laptop or netbook. While it doesn’t permanently remove ads, it will give you more space while you read an email. Ads are what allow us to provide you Yahoo! Mail as a free service and hopefully they’re sometimes useful and interesting too. If you would like permanently disable ads you can sign up for Mail Plus which offers an ad-free experience and other enhanced features.

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I want to let you know about some changes coming to some of the menus in the All-New version of Yahoo! Mail. We’re moving a couple of options to new places and renaming others. It’s all to make them easier to find.

The Mail Menu items are being reorganized and grouped together under ‘Actions‘ and we’re adding a new menu item called ‘Show‘. Here is a detailed look:

The ‘Actions’ menu changes are as shown here

• ‘Select’ choices have been added to easily select all emails or just the ones that you can view in your Inbox.
• We’ve added ‘Sort by’ choices to give you better control on how you display the emails in your Inbox.
• ‘Print Message’ is changing to ‘Print Email…’
• ‘Filter Messages Like This…’ changes to ‘Filter Emails Like This…’
• ‘Full Header’ will now be ‘View Full Header’

We are also adding a ‘Show‘ menu that will allow you to view emails only from your Contacts or Connections. To view emails from your Connections, you will have to turn on the connection related features in Yahoo! Mail. You can find out how to do that in the next section.

There are also some changes to the ‘Options‘ Menu that is at the top right of your Inbox:

Here is everything you need to know about the new ‘Options‘ menu:

• We’ve added a menu item labeled ‘Show’ – here you can show or hide the preview pane, as well as some of the attribute columns of your email list (attachments, size and flag columns). Don’t forget that using the ‘v’ shortcut key also shows and hides the Preview Pane.
• ‘Mail Options‘ is changing to ‘More Options…‘ – this is where you can enable/disable the Connection related features, set up filters, turn on your Vacation response and more.
• ‘Add Application‘ is changing to ‘Add Application…‘ – this lets you add Apps like ‘Attach Large Files’, ‘Edit Photos’ and many others.
• ‘Mail Plus’ changes to ‘Mail Plus…’ and allows you to enjoy the benefits of Yahoo! Mail Plus
• ‘Switch to Yahoo! Mail Classic’ is now just ‘Mail Classic…’ and lets you switch back to the Classic version of Yahoo! Mail

While that might seem like a lot, it’s actually organizing items so that they are much easier to find. And don’t forget about all the great keyboard shortcuts you can use in the All-New Yahoo! Mail. Some of these menu items can be done with one keystroke. Give it a try… Go to your Inbox and hit the ‘v’ key. Voila, you get the preview pane!

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Here’s a reminder for all the fellas out there (like me); Don’t forget that Valentine’s Day is coming up this Sunday (that’s the 14th of February). And of course a big Happy Chinese New Year!! Seriously though, I had totally forgot until just the other day.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to go running around looking for chocolates, flowers or trying to score that 8pm dinner reservation. With the Yahoo! Greetings app in the all new mail, you can send a Valentine’s card without even leaving your Inbox.

Let’s give it a try. Just click on Yahoo! Greetings in the applications pane of your Inbox. If it’s not listed there, just click the little plus sign next to ‘Applications’ and you can add it to your list.

Once the application opens, you can find the right card to send. Select ‘love & dating ecard’ and click ‘go’ to see a list of possible Valentine’s cards. Scroll through the list of cards and click on the one that suits you. Fill in your details, give it the personal touch with your own message and then click send. That’s it, you’re done. Now you can go back to watching Sports Center highlights.

Flowers are great but emails are too, so send your love without the thorns. Be advised, I am still getting chocolates and flowers (I like to cover all the bases).

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